A nofollow link is a hyperlink carrying the rel=”nofollow” HTML attribute, which historically instructed search engines not to pass any ranking authority (link equity) through to the destination page. Google has since evolved this into more of a “hint” than a strict directive, but nofollow links still generally carry less direct ranking weight.
Nofollow links are commonly used for sponsored content, user-generated content like blog comments and forum posts, and any link a site owner doesn’t want to explicitly vouch for.
Despite carrying less direct SEO weight, nofollow links can still provide real value through referral traffic, brand visibility, and indirect trust signals, which is why a healthy backlink profile isn’t purely about maximizing dofollow links.
Understanding link attribute types is part of how we evaluate opportunities in our link building work.